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Genre for Japan: the week that was

I’ve been quiet about Genre for Japan for a bit – mostly because I’m still recovering. All of us are, to a degree! It turned into such a whirlwind, it’s hard to believe it actually happened.

But happen it did, and to our utter astonishment and delight, once you include the additional donations that people were generous to give us, we raised a total of just over £11, 650.

It’s absolutely staggering, and I can’t quite find the words to express how proud I am of everyone involved: Amanda, who started the whole ball rolling and was our fearless leader; Ro, who got the message out there into the Twittersphere and beyond; Jenni, who got us fantastic press and a huge amount of support, particularly from Rebellion; and lastly, Alasdair, for being cool and energetic and Alasdair-y.

It started with just us. But it grew, and by the time we closed the auctions, it had become about every single person who supported us: the publishers and the authors and the editors and the artists who donated spectacular items; the bloggers who spread the word and urged everyone to get involved; the people who placed bids on items… everyone.

We wanted to raise money for a desperately important cause – and we certainly did that – but it feels like something else happened. It feels like this became a genuine community response.

It’s still overwhelming, both the scale of everyone’s generosity and the sense of unity that we saw developing.

Of course, this money won’t undo the damage done to the lives of everyone affected by the disaster in Japan. It can’t: no amount of money can – rebuilding and recovery are two very different things, and the situation there is far from stable. But hopefully, these funds can help in some way, however small that may be.

Stephen Deas, who was one of our wonderfully generous authors and supporters, recently wrote a beautiful blog post, which puts it so much better than I can.

As for the rest of us, Ro’s blog also features a quick (but very touching) follow-up post which echoes the sentiments we all share.

And for a full (and I do mean full!) list of everyone involved, to whom we owe a huge debt of gratitude, see Amanda’s post on the aftermath.

Thank you for making this happen – all of you. We started it – but you did it.